Dr. Jessica Fetterman Receives DEIA Pilot Grant
Dr. Jessica Fetterman of WCVI’s Vascular Biology group is a deserving recipient of the first annual DEIA Pilot Grant. The Department of Medicine launched its inaugural Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Pilot Grant program this year, supporting innovative projects led by interdisciplinary teams of faculty, trainees, and staff. Proposals focused on improving clinical care, education, workforce development, community engagement, and research to advance DEIA across the department.
Dr. Fetterman’s proposal, Tissue is the Issue: Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to Postmortem Organ Donation for Research to Diversify Cardiac Biobanks, is a proposed study to understand limited representation of historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups in postmortem organ biobanks. They plan to use surveys and town halls including Framingham Heart Study and BMC patients to achieve this goal. Team members include Deepa M. Gopal, MD, MS, Jesse D. Moreira-Bouchard, PhD, Zachary Milstone, MD, PhD, Anna Zhebrun, Joshua Lepson, Karen Li, Jason Cunha, MS, Nathanial Fisher, MS, Anjali Anilkumar, Hahnbie Kim, Cosette Giroux, and Zoe Trainer.